Oddbean

Bullying is a complex phenomenon that is reinforced by social media. Most people find it difficult to understand that it involves not only a victim and an aggressor but also those who are the facilitators or passive witnesses. In addition, both the victim and the aggressor have certain particular characteristics that make them prone to bullying. In this particular case, I would tend to go for intervention considering the vulnerability of the adolescent stage where the opinion of peers is important and where part of the individual's personality develops.

There's something unique about the format inspired by notes/tweets where it inspires individual thought instead of a hive mind ala Reddit/Stacker News. Aligned posts don't shine compared to the contrain posts. Consequently, the piling on of bullies is less prone to succeed in causing distress compared with the semi-controlled environments of Facebook or the hive mind of Reddit or the algorithms of X. I am prone to disagree. #Nostr nostr:nevent1qqsyjk8tdekzra3gvcmchmmjxlh8f56tvzfgzlsfk93umlgnguhjtjspz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhsyg9w3m64wcmskh9er5nzeuxnr4wwnaw2ymp66t2k6hzc7cprvvly2vpsgqqqqqqsplfrxu

It’s the upvoting. It pushes agreeable “sounds good” opinions to the top, short-circuiting critical thinking. Notes and tweets don’t have that. You have counts but comments are not ranked by counts aside from the parent note (trending). And since those places are communities, people naturally have the need to belong and are more likely to align themselves with the popular (most upvoted) opinions rather than risk losing reputation for independent takes. The nature of notes going by makes it easier to forget discussions and move on - more forgiving on the user. My totally unscientific 2 sats

Tbh I don't know enough about Snapchat to comment, but I do know it played a big role in online bullying. Whatsapp...I would say no, not what I mean by social media. If I understood you correctly, it sounds like the intervention you're talking about is intervention as a parent/individual, not as a platform. Supervising, reading, speaking up when necessary, calling other parents, removing privileges etc

Intervention must be at a community level. Centralized or not, platforms can do very little. I consider WhatsApp a Social Media. For me, it meets the characteristics to be classified as such: participatory, in real time, etc.